


Decisions

by unfolded73



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Marriage, Missing Scene, Post-Coital Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: Flashbacks to all the little decisions that brought David and Patrick together. Canon compliant through S5.





	Decisions

“Was that okay?” David let his hand slide across Patrick’s abdomen, nails scratching through the hair below his navel. He spooned up against Patrick’s back, ignoring the post-coital sweatiness for once in order to cuddle.

“ _Okay?_ ” Patrick laughed, or more accurately, giggled. “Did you really ask if that was okay? Because I think I might’ve actually blacked out for a minute there.”

David hummed, the path of his hand continuing to Patrick’s hip. “It’s just, it’s our wedding night, so I felt a certain amount of pressure to live up to expectations. Wedding night sex should be, you know, top five sex.”

Patrick rolled over to face him, his nose nuzzling against David’s bare chest. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually keep score on our sex life.”

“Still--”

“It was amazing. You’re amazing.” Patrick kissed him. “You, my husband, are amazing.”

David tried not be thrilled by being called _husband_ , he did, but his hammering heart had other ideas. He remembered stumbling out onto a Manhattan balcony the morning that gay marriage had been legalized in the States, hungover and with only a vague memory of whom he’d gone to bed with the night before, listening with half an ear as his polyamorous performance artist girlfriend at the time lectured her friends about the fact that marriage was a heteronormative construct to which the queer community never should have aspired in the first place. They all nodded sagely, taking drags off their cigarettes in the morning sunlight. David had nodded too, nodded in agreement that marriage was a prison, a trap, a refuge for desperate and weak-willed breeders. It sometimes occurred to him these days that his opinions back then had been thoroughly molded by those around him, pressed into his mind like handprints into soft concrete. Daniella said marriage was a construct, so David believed marriage was a construct. He wondered (not for the first time, or even the hundredth) what that David would think of him now, looking forward to a settled life with this one man who wore sensible Oxford shirts that he bought at the outlet mall in Elmdale.

“Do you ever think about all the tiny decisions we made that led us here?” Patrick asked.

David shook himself out of his reverie. “Hmm?”

Patrick pulled away far enough to be able to focus on his face. “I mean, there’s any number of ways that if things had gone slightly differently, you and I would never have met. Or at the very least, would never have ended up in business together. Or in a relationship.”

“See, I try not to think about things like that, because imagining never being with you would be very upsetting for me. And you know I don’t like my eyes to get puffy.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that to me several times today.”

“Well, it’s important,” David responded, lifting his hand and gesturing in the air for emphasis.

“Important enough to say during the ceremony, though?”

“It’s just that your vows were very emotional.”

“Yeah, I said those things because I like to watch your eyes get puffy,” Patrick said, smirking at him.

David huffed in annoyance, even has he cupped the back of Patrick’s head, fondly stroking the short hair above his neck. “Anyway, no, I don’t get all Gwyneth in _Sliding Doors_ about my life choices.”

“I never saw that movie.”

David reared back, his eyes widening in horror. “Okay, I’m going to need a divorce.”

“Or we could just watch the movie,” Patrick said, grinning, and then leaning in to kiss him.

David hummed and smiled against Patrick’s lips. “Yeah, I suppose we could just watch the movie.”

~*~

Patrick opened the door of his increasing barren apartment to see Rachel standing there. Her eyes were red from crying, and his stomach twisted with guilt at the sight of her.

“Can I come in?” she asked, and what was he supposed to say to that other than yes, so yes is what he said, stepping back to admit her into the cardboard box forest of his living room.

Rachel looked around despondently. “So you’re really moving?” She was dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, her long, red hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Patrick wished he could hug her because he really needed a hug, but he kept his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans.

“Yeah.”

Her shoulders drooped at that, as if just by asking, she might make him change his mind and stay. Which, given their past, probably wasn’t an unreasonable thing for her to think.

“And you’re just going to drive; you don’t even know where you’re going to live?”

Well, no, that part of the plan he’d told Rachel wasn’t true. He’d wanted it to be true -- wanted to be the kind of person who could just uproot his entire life on a whim and head off into the sunset with no clear idea where he was going to end up. But Patrick was a planner, and in the end he’d been too anxious to go through with that level of spontaneity. Instead he’d browsed job websites until he found something weird but promising, working for a guy named Ray who’d hired him over the phone after a lengthy, very chatty interview. He’d even be able to rent a spare room in Ray’s house, so if Ray turned out to be a serial killer, at least Patrick was making himself fully available to murder at any time of the day or night. He liked to be accommodating that way.

He didn’t want to tell Rachel any of this.

She laughed bitterly. “And here I thought this time, the engagement would stick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, I’m sick of your apologies. All you ever do is apologize to me.”

So she came here to berate him, then. Great. Not that he didn’t deserve it, with as many times as he’d broken her heart.

“But I guess that you don’t want to marry me _so much_ that this time you can’t even stand to be in the same town as me,” she continued.

He and Rachel had been best friends in high school, inseparable, and everyone expected them to start dating from the time they were fifteen. Everyone expected it so much that it was like they willed the relationship into existence, and Patrick let himself be swept along with the tide of their expectations. He’d kissed her for the first time after one of his baseball games because he knew he was supposed to. He’d had mediocre sex with her the night of their spring formal because their friends expected it. He’d come home from college and asked her to marry him because his parents and her parents and even the lady who worked the register at the local hardware store had been hinting at him about it. Then a few months later, faced with the fact that being engaged to someone meant you had to actually marry them, he’d panicked and broken off the engagement. That was only the first time he’d broken off their engagement.

It was possible that Patrick was an asshole.

“I just need a fresh start with my life, I can’t--” _Stay here. Face you. Face my parents._

“So then go to Toronto, or Chicago, or somewhere normal that people go when they’re trying to get away from home.”

“It’s expensive to live in those places. And I’m a small town guy.”

“I don’t want you to go. I still--” She hiccupped a tiny sob. “I still love you, Patrick.”

He felt like he still loved her too, and also that he’d never had a clear idea of what love actually was. But he knew he couldn’t marry her. With so much uncertainty in his life, he was finally certain of that, albeit several years too late.

“Please don’t go.”

It would make a lot of people happy if he stayed. Rachel, his parents, his buddies from high school who still liked to drink cheap beer and watch hockey. The lady from the hardware store. In leaving, he was disappointing everyone. He could agree not to go, and that weight of disappointing everyone would lift. 

Replaced by a heavier weight that he couldn’t quite define, but that had been pushing him down his whole life.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I have to go.”

~*~

This fucking motel smelled funny, that was why he couldn’t sleep.

David turned over one more time, trying to get comfortable between the scratchy, low thread count sheets. He pulled the sleeve of his designer sweatshirt over his hand and cupped it over his face and inhaled, his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to imagine that he was back in his own bed at his parent’s mansion. Or the bed in his Manhattan loft. Or even the bed of a stranger as he avoided the wet spot on the sheets and wondered if it would be easier just to leave now rather than waiting until morning. Literally anywhere would be better than this hellhole.

Flipping onto his back violently, David huffed out a breath.

“Oh my God, David, can you stop fidgeting for like, _two minutes_?”

“Fuck off, Alexis.”

She made an unhappy squeaking noise. “You don’t have to be such a dick to me all the time, you know.”

“I think I do.” He was still furious at her that she would have left with Stavros, abandoning him to their mother’s misery and their father’s misplaced optimism and this place.

“I could leave too, you know,” he added.

“Oh really, David? Where would you go?”

“To New York, where I _lived_.”

“Your apartment is _gone_ , David.”

“I have _friends_ , Alexis.”

“Oh, do you. Name one.”

He opened his mouth, but before he could say a person who definitely existed and wasn’t made up, Alexis added, “And I mean someone who would actually care enough about you to let you crash on their sofa now that you’re poor. Also, how would you even get to New York? We don’t even have a car. Or money for a plane ticket on a…” -- and here she shuddered -- “ _commercial airline_.”

“Believe me, if I wanted to find someone to put me up in New York, I could. There are men who would be more than happy to send me a plane ticket if I asked.”

“Ew, David. Like a sugar daddy? Even you should have more self-respect than that.”

He snorted. Self-respect. As if.

“And anyway, you’re not the young twink you once were; no one’s going to pay you to be their boy toy now,” she added.

“Jump off a bridge, Alexis,” he said, in no small part because he feared what she said was true. He didn’t have any friends who’d cared about anything but his money and connections, and he probably was too old to attract the attention of someone who might support him financially just because he was pretty and good at sucking dick. A small voice in the back of his head told him he was better off without those kinds of people. He ignored it.

“Fine, prove it. Leave,” she huffed. “Go to New York and find some skeevy guy to support you, see if I care.”

A part of him was so angry with Alexis that he almost got up at one thirty in the morning and stormed out of the room. He’d find a way to get out of this town somehow. He’d walk. He’d hitchhike. He’d sprout wings and fly.

After a long pause during which he stayed under the too-thin bedding, David said, “I can’t leave, I need to be here for Mom. She won’t survive this without me.”

“Yeah, _that’s_ why you’re staying,” Alexis muttered sarcastically.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

~*~

“Feeling better?” Stevie asked as she took the joint out of his hand and put it to her lips. David watched as she took a deep drag and held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds before blowing it up at the sky.

He leaned back on the worn picnic table behind the motel and looked up at the way the light filtered through the trees. Schitt’s Creek could be oddly beautiful when viewed from the right angle. And when high. 

“Yeah. Better.”

“Done freaking out about the store?”

“Probably not, but I am presently done freaking out. At present.”

Stevie giggled, and David rolled over on the table to take the joint back from her.

“It’s the consignment part of it that’s crucial, but I wasn’t able to impart that to that uptight little cutie at Ray’s.”

“You talk like your mother when you’re high.”

David gasped, sitting up. “You take that back.”

Stevie blinked at him. “I just mean you use bigger words. Unnecessarily large words,” she overennunciated. “Wait, you said ‘cutie.’”

“Who did?” He shook his head side-to-side, trying to clear it. “I mean, I said what about what?”

“You said ‘that uptight cutie at Ray’s.’ He’s cute? You failed to mention that, you just said he was snippy.”

“He’s not cute; he was pressuring me to fill out a form. Nothing about that was cute.” David stretched back out on the picnic table. 

“And yet you said it.”

“Also I’m pretty sure he was wearing Levi’s.”

Stevie clutched at her heart. “Oh my _God_.”

“You may not think I can tell when you’re making fun of me but I actually can. I just mean he’s not my type. Which doesn’t matter because I’m sure he’s straight. He was pretty much wearing the straight boy uniform.”

“You sure are worried about what this non-cute boy’s sexual preferences are, David.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Stevie didn’t respond to that, and so they were silent for a while. David continued to squint up at the sunlight-dappled trees and Stevie… thought her Stevie thoughts. David imagined this is what his teen years would have been like if he’d grown up with no money in a town like this: getting stoned with a friend on a sad picnic table behind a motel. No parties with half-naked models and bowls of ecstasy. At the moment, he couldn’t put his finger on any reason why this would have been such a bad way to grow up. He certainly could have used a friend like Stevie in those years. Someone to support him and to call him on his bullshit.

David took a deep breath and broke the silence. “I guess what I wanted to say before I was stoned is, maybe it’s not too late for me to give up on the store idea. My mother was right, I’ve never done anything like this on my own before, and any belated maternal instinct she may have had to encourage me--”

“David Rose, don’t you dare give up on the store. I’ll be furious with you if you do, I mean it.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know about running a business.”

“I know. But you can ask your dad for help. Or you can ask the cutie at Ray’s.”

“I hate you,” he said, but he reached into his pocket and ran his finger along the edge of Patrick’s business card.

“Please don’t give up on it, David.”

He rolled over and looked at Stevie, her black hair tousled in the light breeze. He felt the sudden urge to tell her he loved her, but he figured that was just the marijuana talking. He bit his lips to keep the declaration in and sat up. “I’m going to go down to the store,” he announced.

“To do what?” she asked, hopping down off the picnic table and taking David’s hand to pull him to his feet. The world tilted alarmingly on its axis from this new vantage point.

“To work on my business plan.”

~*~

Patrick called his parents on Sunday afternoons without fail. He felt like if he didn’t stick to the schedule, if he let a Sunday go by and didn’t call them, then he’d start going longer and longer between calls and eventually he’d barely talk to them at all. So he called, right on schedule, even though the thought of talking to them today had caused a ball of anxiety to form in his stomach for some reason that he couldn’t explain.

After the exchange of pleasantries and listening to the latest gossip from his hometown, an uncomfortable silence descended.

“So, I… uh…” Why was this so hard to talk to his parents about? Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the phone harder against his ear. “I’m not going to be working for Ray anymore.”

“Oh,” his mom said, and he could hear the mixture of confusion and worry in that one little syllable. “That didn’t last very long, did it?”

“I know you said Ray’s a little… scattered, but you probably need to give it some more time, son,” his father said in that deep, sonorous voice that Patrick had failed to inherit. 

“Does that mean you’ll be coming back home?” his mom asked, and _shit_ , of course she would jump to that conclusion.

“No, no no, that’s not why I’m… I’m going into partnership with another guy to help him run a store.”

“What guy?” his father asked at the same time his mother said, “A store?”

“Um, his name is David,” Patrick said, and it felt weirdly thrilling and forbidden to speak David’s name out loud to his parents. He frowned; what an odd thought. “The general store in town closed down, and David’s leased it to turn it into a space where he’s going to sell products from local vendors on consignment. It’s a good business model.”

“It sounds interesting,” his dad said, which sounded like a diplomatic way of saying ‘risky.’ Or perhaps a diplomatic way of saying ‘I can’t fathom why you would you give up a good job and a relationship with a lovely girl like Rachel to move to the ass end of the world and drift from one job you’re overqualified for to another.’

“It should be. I’m excited about it.” He paced across the floor, suddenly anxious to get off the phone. 

“I saw Mr. Stephens a few days ago,” his father said.

“Oh, yeah?” Theo Stephens had been Patrick’s boss at the bank.

“He said your job is still available if you want to come back home.”

“Tell him he really needs to hire a replacement,” Patrick said.

“I think he did, but it didn’t work out. So he’s looking again to fill the position, and I thought--”

“I’m staying here in Schitt’s Creek, Dad.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why? What does that town have that your hometown doesn’t?”

A rush of images filled Patrick’s head. The clean white walls of the store, and the nice way it smelled now that he and David had washed everything thoroughly and filled it with skin and hair care products. The way David smirked when Patrick said something witty and sardonic, like there was a big smile inside of him that he was barely containing. The way David’s long, ringed fingers looked as he pressed labels onto bottles of moisturizer and bags of tea. 

“It has the store.”

“Oh, stop giving Patrick a hard time, Clint,” his mother said. “We just miss you, is all.” 

Patrick’s face flushed with shame that he was making his mother sad. “I know, Mom. I miss you too.”

“You’ll keep us posted about how it goes with the store?” his dad asked.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, but there was a part of him that never wanted to mention the store to them again. It was his and David’s, and sharing it with people at home, even his parents, felt strangely blasphemous.

“We love you, son.”

“Love you, too.”

The next few days were filled with body milk and spreadsheets of vendors and inventory and laughter and his heart squeezing uncomfortably in his chest every time he looked at David across the room. On Patrick’s next day off, he got up early and went for a hike, like if he didn’t keep moving his skin might turn itself inside out.

Or like he might have to admit that he had romantic feelings for David.

It wasn’t that the thought of being gay had never occurred to him before; he wasn’t born under a rock, after all. But he dismissed it, because gay men weren’t like him. Gay men were like David, fashion-conscious and unaware of what a change-up pitch was. And then there had been Rachel and a few other girls in college, keeping him from seriously questioning his sexuality. He looked straight, he acted straight, he’d had sex with women. Although, true, he’d always wondered what the big deal about sex was, because he’d secretly never thought it was all that great. And true, he’d once sat in a darkened theater watching _Avengers_ and spending a lot more time focusing on Chris Evans than on Scarlett Johansson. But he’d never really fallen for a boy either, and eventually Patrick had concluded that he wasn’t a particularly sexual person. That was a thing, after all; he’d read about it. 

Then he met David Rose.

He spent hours working on the store’s budget and thinking about the turn of David’s neck. He stocked shelves and thought about David’s elegant fingers, with those silver rings that would catch the light and attract Patrick’s attention like a moth to a streetlamp. He stared into the middle distance, listening to the jazz that David insisted was an essential part of the store’s aesthetic, and thought about what David’s mouth would feel like on his own.

There was no use denying it: for the first time in his life, Patrick was falling for someone, and it was a man. And while that was confusing enough, the bigger problem was that it was his business partner.

Patrick reached the overlook point, and he stopped to catch his breath, sweat running down between his shoulder blades. 

“I’m gay,” he said out loud to the forest, testing the words, the very concept, in his mouth.

“I’m gay. I’m very, very gay for David Rose,” he said, and then laughed. He sounded crazy.

An argument could be made that it would be the wisest course never to act on his feelings because of the business. The most likely outcome to sharing his feelings with David would be a humiliating rejection; Patrick wasn’t the kind of person David would be attracted to, surely, and the best he could hope for would be for David not to laugh in his face. Even if by some miracle David was interested, all that would probably lead to would be a short relationship that would inevitably end, leaving Patrick working day in and day out with the man who’d broken his heart. 

He imagined asking David out, and David saying yes. Suddenly it was all he wanted, to go on a date with David, but he didn’t know if he’d have the courage to do it. Still, admitting that he wanted to, admitting what his feelings were, that was almost as good as making the decision to act on them.

“I’m so fucked,” Patrick said to the trees. They nodded in the breeze in agreement.

~*~

It was a rare day off from the store, and all David had wanted to do was sleep until noon and then lie in bed and eat a bag of chips and watch whatever was on the Hallmark Channel, which was available on the new cable package that his dad had gotten for the motel. Instead, his mother had woken him up with a list of chores, the latest of which was helping her to groom her wigs. So putting it mildly, David was crabby. He wanted to text Patrick and tell him about the trials his mother was putting him through, but Patrick was working at the store alone today and he probably wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.

“I like you and Patrick together,” his mother said, and David eyed her suspiciously, wondering if she’d finally learned to read his mind.

“There’s nothing to like yet; we’ve been on one date and we’ve kissed a few times, that’s all.” He combed the wig he was working on a little more vigorously, which got him a reproachful look from Moira.

“Perhaps that’s so, but the spark between you is pellucid for all to see.” She gave him a knowing smile. “He lights up when you walk in the room, and I dare say the reverse is also accurate.”

“Okay, well.” David bit down on a smile, lest he prove her point. “There’s still a lot that can go wrong, that’s all. And when things do go wrong, both my personal life and my business will be fucked, so.”

“Don’t be so fatalistic, David. You mustn’t assume that things will go wrong.”

“Things always go wrong.” He set the hairbrush down with a clatter. “I’m the first guy he’s been with. Literally the first man he’s ever kissed. It’s… it’s like holding a baby bird in my hand while riding a roller coaster. Any minute now we’re going to go over a big drop and I’ll forget and” -- he closed his fist tightly -- “I’ll crush him.”

“A very evocative avian metaphor, darling, but Patrick’s a grown man, not a bébé bird. Inexperienced with some activities, I’m sure, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who can’t take care of himself.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you sure _you_ aren’t the bird on the ferris wheel, David?”

“I said roller coaster,” he responded petulantly. “And hardly.”

Moira looked unconvinced.

“God, what am I doing, getting involved with my business partner? This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in a… lifetime of dumb things,” he said with a flourish of his hand in the air. “I should end it now, before things get even messier.”

Tilting her head and regarded him for a moment, Moira reached out and put a hand on his bicep. “You’ve often put your heart in the care of people who have hurt you. But that isn’t because you are feeble-minded. It’s because those people weren’t worthy of you. Patrick, I think, may be worthy of you.”

“Okay, you _barely_ know him.”

His mother just smiled. “I have a good feeling about him, that’s all. Have a little faith in the power of love.”

“Ew.”

She ignored that. “I implore you, David, don’t end things with him before they’ve even begun. Open your heart to the possibility of joy.”

“Ugh.” David went back to combing out the wig. “Fine.”

~*~

“Hey, do you wanna get a drink after rehearsal?” Patrick asked, which made Stevie narrow her eyes at him in confusion.

“David’s not expecting you?”

“We are capable of being apart for an evening.” At Stevie’s skeptical look, he added. “I told him you were stressed about the show and that I was planning to take you out for a drink.”

“So you lied.”

“No, I didn’t. You _are_ stressed about the show, and I _was_ planning to take you out for a drink.”

Patrick was being weird. “What’s going on, Brewer?”

“Nothing’s going on. I. want. to. get. a. drink. Do. you. want. to. get. a. drink.” Each word came out in a monotone.

She huffed. “Sure.”

“Great.” He looked simultaneously frustrated that she was being so difficult and yet pleased that she’d finally agreed.

When they were released by Moira from _Cabaret_ rehearsal, sweaty and exhausted, Stevie was surprised when Patrick led her toward his car instead of down the street to the cafe. “Where are we going?”

“The Wobbly Elm,” he said, unlocking the passenger door and opening it for her.

“We could just go to the cafe,” she said, but she got in the car anyway. Going to the cafe meant she might have to sample one of Twyla’s terrible cocktail experiments.

Patrick got in the car and cranked the engine. “I find that when I have conversations in the cafe, somehow half the town knows what I was talking about by morning.”

Stevie’s suspicion meter edged up a couple more notches. “You are being really weird.”

“I know,” he said, pulling out onto the main road out of the center of town.

“If something bad is happening with David, or if something bad is about to happen, like if you’re planning to break up with him, you better tell me now. If you wait until I’ve got a drink in me at the bar, I might beat you with a pool cue and leave you for dead in the woods.”

Patrick laughed. “Nothing like that, I promise. I don’t think you’ll feel the temptation to beat me to death.” And then he changed the subject to _Cabaret_ , and Stevie let him, because she had an infinite well of frustration to express about the show and her part in it.

He let her rant the whole way to the bar, but once they had their drinks ordered, he put a gentle hand on her arm. “You’re way too hard on your performance, you know. Your voice is actually really good.”

She snorted, taking a large pull from her beer. “It really isn’t. I know what singers are supposed to sound like, and I don’t sound like that.”

“Maybe not, but you sound real, and you sound vulnerable. You’re gonna be a fantastic Sally; I mean that.”

Stevie flushed, uncomfortable with the compliment. “Thanks,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “Okay, what did you drag me all the way out here for?”

Now it was Patrick’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Oh. Well, there’s something I want to do, and I’m hoping that if it’s a terrible idea, you’ll talk me out of it.”

“Okay,” Stevie said slowly. “It probably _is_ a terrible idea, but what the hell -- what is it?”

Patrick took a long drink from his beer glass as if for strength. “I’m thinking about asking David to marry me.”

Stevie almost choked on her beer. “Oh my God. _Oh my God!_ Patrick!” She wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure if they were hugging friends, or non-hugging friends. “Patrick, that’s amazing!”

He just nodded. “Yes, but is it a terrible idea?”

She had to pause at that. Had David ever mentioned marriage to her, or what he thought of it? She didn’t think so. “Have you ever talked about marriage with him?”

“Not in those terms, but we’re starting to talk about… really long term things. Being together years from now, and what we might do. It just seems like that’s where his head is, like he finally trusts that I’m not going to lose interest in him. And I want to… I guess I’m just a traditional guy at heart and I’d really like to have that whole thing. The wedding. The vows and the cake and the dancing.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “But I don’t know. Maybe he won’t want that.”

“I might’ve assumed that about David at one point, that he wasn’t the marrying kind. But watching him with you, like the way he was with your parents, and planning your birthday party?” Stevie smiled, and then suddenly she had to force back tears. “I think if I had to place a bet on it, I’d bet on him saying yes.”

Patrick let out a breath he was holding. “Okay, cool. Okay.” And then he smiled one of his soft smiles at her. “So do I have your blessing?”

Her eyes widened. “My what?”

“I mean, I could ask his father, I guess, but I don’t think David would appreciate that. Also I don’t think Mr. Rose would be able to keep a secret. And anyway, I feel like you’re the… you’re like the guardian of David’s heart, if that makes sense. So I think you’re the one I should ask.”

The tears became impossible to hold back now. Stevie felt like the play was scraping her raw as it was, exposing a deep well of emotions just below the surface. Grabbing a cocktail napkin, she dabbed at her eyes. 

“Stevie, don’t cry, you’re gonna make me cry.”

Laughing, she handed him a cocktail napkin. “You’re such a softy.”

“I know, I know.”

“Yes, you have my blessing. I mean, I basically bullied David into realizing he was into you, so it would be pretty shitty of me not to give you my blessing to marry him.”

Patrick smirked at her. “Yeah, that would be pretty shitty, and you did what now?”

Stevie picked up her beer glass and clinked it against Patrick’s. “I love both you idiots.”

~*~

“Stevie called us idiots,” Patrick mumbled as they were both drifting off to sleep.

“Yeah, her wedding toast left something to be desired, and the fact that I cried anyway just shows how ragged my emotions were today.”

“Not in the toast, I mean when I asked for her blessing to propose, she said ‘I love both you idiots’.”

David pressed his resulting grin against Patrick’s forehead. “That sounds like Stevie.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m so glad my family lost all our money. I’m so glad you couldn’t stay in your hometown anymore and that Ray posted that stupid job online. I’m so glad we made all the right decisions that led us to right here, right now,” David said in a rush, like he had to get the words out before he changed his mind about saying them.

Patrick put his hand over David’s where it rested on his hip and threaded their fingers together, bringing David’s hand to his lips. “Me too, sweetheart.”


End file.
